Polyjuice Perplexion
by boysenberry
Summary: Scorpius is trying to woo... Scorpius?


**Perhaps an alternate ending to 'Spell Monkey'...?**

* * *

Scorpius burst into the room, looking desperately around the room for Rose. He knew he was late, but he didn't care. He'd sat in that Knockturn Alley dive, watching everyone around him and realising that of this whole collection of thieves, robbers, murderers and gamblers he was probably the one who'd stuffed up his life the most.

How could he ever claim to be worthy of Rose Weasley, light of his life, fire of his heart, if he couldn't even get up the courage to tell her how he felt, like a man?

So he stood in her living room, waving his head around like a madman and his arms around like a windmill.

"Rose!" he called out suddenly, and equally suddenly he knew where she was.

He inched around her couch, that couch where they'd taken all those liberties the night before, and sighed. But the couch wasn't his true destination. It was what lay behind the door next to it, the one he was currently standing in front of wishing he'd had the courage to do this in the first place -

Because tonight, finally, he was going to reveal who he really was.

He checked his reflection in the mirror over the mantlepiece. Still Edgar. Thank Merlin. She had to hear the words from Edgar and Scorpius, or she'd think he'd gone mad.

She'd think he'd gone mad no matter what he said.

He laughed, a little crazily, and opened the door to the balcony.

And he'd been right. Rose was standing there, facing the world, her back to this tiny little flat. There was a breeze, not enough to chill, but enough that her long hair could fly loose in the wind, and as she leant against the balcony rails he realised something he had a feeling he'd always known.

He loved Rose Weasley.

She turned, and his heart tightened in his chest. "Rose," he managed to get out, his voice thick with emotion. "Rose."

"Edgar." She smiled, that small little smile she gave to everyone but him, and suddenly he wanted to be Scorpius again, right now, so she'd smile up at him properly, from the circle of his arms...

But not yet. "Rose," he said again, and with each word he grew more anxious. There was still time to back out, still time to - "Rose, there's something I haven't told you."

And as he said the last words, the transformation began. Seconds later, he stood before her, Edgar's cloak drooping over his smaller frame.

"I'm not Edgar. I'm Scorpius."

"I know."

She turned away, and he stared after her, his mind a mush of emotions, his face unable to do more than gape at her. "How?" he thought he managed to say, but he couldn't be sure -

"How could I not guess?" she said, spinning to face him. "Of course you're Scorpius. It's in your every move, every comment, every lustful stare at passing attractive timepieces..."

"And -" He gulped, and she stared back at him, her face unreadable. "Do - do you mind?"

She laughed, and for a moment he allowed himself to hope... "Of course I don't mind. You're an amazing friend, Scorpius."

"Friends?" he said softly. "Is that all we could ever be?"

She reached out, the pain in her eyes almost blinding him. "Scorpius - it's not you, it's me -"

And suddenly she was transforming too, her features melting into indistinctness, and then to -

"Mother?"

Her arms were still outstretched, but he couldn't bring himself to step into her embrace.

"You have to understand, Scorpius -"

He wrenched himself away, but not before he saw a tear roll down her powdered cheek. "Why?" he burst out. "How - how long have you been fooling me?"

"The real Rose died in an accident when you were in third year," she whispered. "You - she was the first friend you'd ever made. You were just starting to feel accepted. You were badly hurt, and when you woke up in St Mungo's begging to see Rose we realised you'd never recover if you knew the truth." She took a breath, and suddenly he realised how hard it must have been for her, all these years.

"You mean..." He gulped, trying to find the words. "You mean you took Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid for five years, just to spare me pain?"

She nodded, and as she pulled him into her arms, he finally allowed himself to grieve for Rose. But the Rose he'd known, the Rose he'd fallen in love with - that Rose was a lie. And he had to accept that.

But it didn't mean he couldn't cry.

"So much for me," he groaned into his mother's arms.

"It wasn't all bad," she said in an odd tone of voice. He looked up - and there was a gleam in her eye that hadn't been there before. "Last night, for example..."

Last night?

He looked at his mother, aghast. How could she - how could he ever reconcile the ageing society matron in front of him with the beautiful woman who'd lain in his arms the night before? So once again he pulled himself away, and as he walked to the edge of the balcony he didn't allow himself to look back.

"Scorpius..."

"Not now, Mother," he ground out. "I need time to think."

"I just need to explain one thing."

He turned, reluctantly, refusing to look her in the eye. "You have a lot of explaining to do, that's for sure."

She blinked, and suddenly the gleam in her eyes returned. "I'm just saying, you inherited more than your blonde hair from your father..."

CLAP!

"What -"

A second thunderclap ripped through the air, and suddenly an old woman stood in front of him, her white hair tied up in a tight bun at the top of her head.

"Who are you?" he asked in terror. He looked around for his mother, but she was nowhere to be seen.

He groaned. This was getting ridiculous. "Don't tell me my mother's actually Minerva McGonagall."

"You know my name? I'm impressed, Mr Malfoy." The old crone took a step forward, and he stared defiantly back at her. "But, fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not your mother." She took a breath, and gestured toward a garden bench hidden behind one of Rose's potted palms. "Sit down, and let me explain..."

He did as instructed. Somehow he got the impression that she wasn't the sort of witch one should make a habit of crossing.

"Twenty-three years ago, your mother went abroad to Europe. When she returned, she refused to tell anyone of her trip, not even the barest little detail like whether she'd met a hot Italian man and spent a week sailing the Mediterranean with him."

He blinked. She sighed.

"But I digress. Dumbledore -" she stumbled over the name, as if holding back tears. "Dumbledore was desperate to know. Miss Greengrass had always been more, shall we say, adventurous than her peers, and she was often found after hours in the boys' dormitory..."

"My mother would never -" He stopped himself, remembering what they'd done the night before. Maybe she would stoop to anything, after all.

"Dumbledore decided things were getting out of hand. She'd never baulked at telling him about her adventures before, so he knew she must have done something terrible. Something so disgusting even she was ashamed.

"And he was angry. He cursed her that night, saying if he ever found out for sure that she had committed incest, he would make her disappear." She waved her arm, taking in the scene before them. "As has happened tonight."

That couldn't be right. "But Dumbledore's been dead for decades. How could he possibly..."

And suddenly the truth began to dawn on him. McGonagall nodded, her hand reaching out instinctively to comfort him. "Yes," she murmured. "You are Albus Dumbledore."

She muttered a spell under her breath, and he felt his whole world shift beneath him. His body began to shift, almost like taking Polyjuice Potion - but it was more than just the physical that was changing. Memories began flooding back - Astoria Greengrass in those tight skirts of hers, all those evenings spent cooped up with Harry Potter, nights spent with Grindelward, before -

"No," he almost yelled, but McGonagall was gone. "Something's not right," he said desperately, and it wasn't until the words left his mouth that he realised they were true. An uneasy feeling gripped him, the feeling that something was off, just as he'd settled into the realisation that he was the repressed reincarnation of Albus Dumbledore -

But he wasn't there yet. He searched through his mind, through his memories, but Dumbledore was a complex man. Maybe that was it. Maybe he just hadn't had enough time to adjust to the sheer number of thoughts Dumbledore had racing around in his mind.

He should probably stop thinking of Dumbledore in the third person, he thought ruefully.

But there was something more. Something underneath all those layers.

He sat alone on the balcony, wishing McGonagall hadn't disappeared. He was all alone, with no-one left to guide him in the world. His mother was gone. Rose was gone. Everything he'd ever cared about was being ripped away from him, no matter how much he tried to resist.

He was standing at the edge of the balcony before he realised he'd even stood up. He looked out at the glittering lights of London - and then he looked down the three stories that lay between him and the end of all of this...

"Don't do it!"

He looked up - and got the fright of his life as he looked back at...

Himself.

Scorpius Malfoy stood in front of him, blond hair bedraggled and wand looking slightly bent - but undeniably Scorpius Malfoy.

So he looked down at himself. An old man's body greeted him, and somewhere in the part of his mind that was still Scorpius this struck him as odd.

"I may not have worked out how to stop Time," the Scorpius in front of him said determinedly, "but I sure as heck know how to bend it to my purposes."

Dumbledore/Scorpius shrugged. "Go on," he said, his voice sounding as tired as he felt. "Nothing you can say will shock me now."

And then there was a glint in the Other Scorpius' eye, and he was marching forward, arms outstretched. "I can't tell you," he whispered, "but I can make you remember..."

His mouth crept closer to his, even as his arms continued to weave their way around his neck. "Look inside... deep down... reach out and grab it, R -"

The Other Scorpius stopped abruptly. R. R stood for -

And suddenly it all came flooding back. The party. Uncle George's new drink. Scorpius, in the corner, experimenting with his time project. All her cousins, standing around and daring at her to try it...

"We never thought it would end this way," the Other Scorpius whispered - but he was the real Scorpius, wasn't she?

"All this time..." Rose murmured.

"We've been trapped in a time loop," Scorpius explained. "We've been living out this drama over and over. I finally worked out how to stop it. I couldn't reveal myself as Scorpius, because you'd just resist it. I had to find a way to make you think you were the one doing the pretending. So you would understand why I've been pretending to be Rose this whole time."

"But I don't," Rose said, still utterly confused. "Why was I pretending to be you?"

Scorpius coughed. "A slight side effect of George's new drink. It's been described as a, uh, more intense version of Polyjuice Potion. It convinces the user that they're actually the person they're pretending to be. It's meant to wear off after an hour, but in combination with the time loop effect -" He coughed again, and suddenly she didn't care.

"Kiss me, Scorpius," she murmured. And he was only too happy to oblige.*


End file.
